Is my house snake the right size for its age?

Is my house snake the right size for its age? 

It's a fairly common question- and it comes from the right place. Everybody wants to know if their animal is on the right track. That is perfectly normal. 

No worries though! Odds are very good that it is. I'll explain. 

One source of confusion about this is that people sometimes make this assessment by making comparisons to others that may have limited or flat out false information about the snake they are comparing to.

For example- unfortunately sometimes people who are selling wildcaught animals dont know the age of an animal, dont know how long it takes for a hatchling to get to that size, so they just guess. They'll say like oh its a year old, (basing that guess off of other snakes growth) when in reality is a full grown breedable male that could be seven years old already- but that person doesn't know better, buys the animal, and then shows it to their friends. Of course their friend wants one after seeing how cool they are and decides to get a hatchling. A year later its no where near the size of their friend's snake and they start to wonder, "why isn't mine growing? is something wrong with my snake? Nope. Not at all. 

We also can (understandably) end up with misunderstandings when we carry assumptions and concerns from the keeping of one species to another t00. 

For example- house snakes are not like ball pythons on this subject. Ball pythons have very consistent hatchling and growth weights across their growing years, so you can really use that predictable and linear growth to assess how things are going over time. Unfortunately, this predictable linear growth does not exist in house snakes. So there is not, and can not be, a set schedule of by x age they "should" be Y grams for house snakes. It just doesn't work that way. 

There's a few reasons for this, one of them is that house snakes regularly don't have a consistent starting point. They can hatch out at 2g or three times that. It's really all over the board. That's normal for housies. In ball pythons, an exceptionally small hatchling is rare, and often leads to poor outcomes. Which explains some of the X weight by Y age concern. This is not so in house snakes.

There's some theories as to why this happens (studies done in other snake species) that suggest an evolutionary advantage to having variability in clutch/hatchling size in the wild, but I digress...

So why does this matter? Well because vastly different starting points can influence our perception of the animals growth over time. 

For example, let's set up a comparison.

Say two different eggs of the same species/morph hatch on the same day.  Hatchling A, a female, is born at a tiny 2 grams, and hatchling B, a male, is born at 6 grams. 

Both hatchlings are fairly consistent feeders, A is voracious, and B is a little more shy. He prefers his food easier to eat. He's growing, he isn't losing weight. He has great body condition. He's just not in a hurry to eat everything in sight like A is,  

Fast forward several months. Hatchling A is now 7 grams, more than tripling in size! Hatchling B is 10 grams. A steady weight gain, but not even double yet, definitely not as impressive as A's. 

Now if we set a *standard* that says all house snake hatchlings *should* be 10 grams by X months old... than hatchling B is "on track", but hatchling A is "too small for her age", and false assumptions are made about her health etc.

In reality, hatchling A isn't "behind", she's actually growing faster than B, by quite a bit.

Another thing to keep in mind is that growth is not perfectly linear in house snakes. As anyone who has known the agony of raising an aurora to breeding size can tell you! This means that they go through periods of rapid growth, and also periods of stagnation where time passes but growth is limited or stagnant. So again, we end up comparing apples to oranges. 

Another thing to note is weight alone is not a reliable marker for health. Its just a number when taken out of context of the full picture.

Some animals start from behind in life like A, some snakes like B are fit but not in a rush to get big- that doesn't automatically mean that they're in poor health or weren't taken care of. So cut yourself some slack if your housie isn't as big as you thought it would be by X age. These are really small snakes so weight can vary by a lot and still not be determinate of any meaningful conclusion. 

So if there isn't any hard X by Y numbers, then how do we assess?

Take a look at the body condition:

Are there loose folds of skin? Sunken eyes? Visible spine? Head seem a bit large, disproportionate to the body? That would be a indication that your snake is underweight. So feed them more heavily (if they will eat it) or more often.

Does your snake seem otherwise healthy, but you doubt it would be able to race off quickly if it needed to? Do you have difficulty feeling its ribs and spine under its chonk? Does the head seem a bit small, disproportionate to body? Does the body seem considerably wider at the bottom than the top? That's obesity. Which is just as dangerous if not more so to a snake as being too thin. In this case you would feed less of course.

An ideal body condition for a snake would be muscular, you should be able to feel the ribs without much pressure. Think "fit". 

If they are 'fit' there's really no need to sweat it if they aren't the same size as their peers, even compared to their siblings. One good growth spurt and they can shoot right up there. Even if they don't that doesn't mean that it will effect their quality of life.

They are all individuals, like us. Think about it in human terms. A professional horse jockey will be roughly between 4'10" and 5'2" and weigh between 105-115lbs. A professional basketball player is 6'7" tall and weights 215lbs on average. Both must be incredibly physically fit and in peak health to perform. 

Brett Prebble was 5'5" and 113lbs when he rode Greek Moon to victory at the 2012 Melbourne cup. Brett is considered a "heavier" jockey.

Sim Bhullar, a professional NBA athlete, stands 7' 6" tall, and weighs 309 lbs.

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There are evolutionary advantages and disadvantages for each side of the spectrum, both sizes and everything in between.  Forgive me for using an analogy, but you cant expect all housies to be a "basketball players", and you cant expect them to be "horse jockeys" either.

No amount of withdraw or neglect will turn a basketball player into a healthy horse jockey. Regardless of size, if they aren't getting what they need, they wont look healthy.  Their body condition will whither, vital functions will shut down, and they will eventually die. You cant "stunt" a house snake, only thin or fill it out.

Also no amount of "powerfeeding" will turn a horse jockey into a healthy basketball player. You just end up with an obese horse jockey. As obesity is the #1 risk factor for liver failure in house snakes, this is dangerous long term.
 
A note for breeders: While its true you may be able to get a basketball player to their adult size faster with a strong feeder, you should know he's still not going to play until his time ;) And yes a healthy horse jockey will absolutely still perform in his time too. So there's no reason to risk it. 

All that attempting to change your snake into something it's not will do is harm the snake. Again, it is body condition, not size or age, that should really matter.

There are of course the minimum and maximum sizes, but those are averages for when they are adults. Point is, it is more important that the animal is healthy. Does it have good body condition? Does it eat regularly? Is it active? Does it poop and shed and do those things snakes are supposed to? Yes? Then having X vs Y rules to measure against isn't going to tell you anything you don't already know. :) 

I hope that helps some.